ءردء اءر بعنازیر بھءتته

For the past one month, I've been on an off-and-on Urdu learning spree. I can read and write Urdu with average fluency now. It's quite an exciting prospect to learn a language. It's like diving into a world full of human expression. If my language spree continues, I shall graduate a polyglot.
At NALSAR, we rarely get the time to read beyond the course (barring Political Science, wherein we do manage to read things of interest although the didactics are absolute bullshit). I'd vowed to myself that I'd read a lot this semester.Being an avid reader, especially of works that relate to politics or humanity, reading Benazir Bhutto's autobiography, "Daughter of the East", was quite an irritating exercise, partly due to her fibs and partly due to a mild fever that I'd acquired. She's glorified her father beyond the wildest imagination of any person who knew about Zulfi's politics. She went to the extent of saying that it was Mujibur who was responsible for the 1971 war, at no point mentioning that it was her own father's ego that led to the Bengali agitation and the formation of the Mukti Bahini. The very same father did not allow Bihari refugees from Bangladesh, who'd supported him through the war even though they were residents of East Pakistan, to settle in Pakistan. Those people exist today sans rights,passports and worst of all,food. They can be seen in the slums of Delhi,Bombay,Calcutta and possibly, smaller towns of East India.The same father who spoke of Roti, Kapda and Maqaan but never spoke of how he wished to provide those to the common Pakistani. He was every bit like the Quaid-e-Azam. Pakistan's Quaid-e-awam, Zulfikar Ali Bhutto, who never cared for the Awam(Common Populace). The period described by Benazir is the time of General Zia. Zia is accused of having proliferated Islamisation in the legal system. However, it was Zulfikar and not Zia who'd started it. In a half-hearted Islamist gesture, he'd declared Friday as a public holiday and banned drinking and gambling.It is highly regrettable that a woman of the stature of Benazir(although, from what has been written about her, it can be inferred that she was an academic disaster) had to resort to this degree of untruth to back her campaign and to forward the interest of PPP.Enough of Benazir bashing. Daddy may not approve.
My love for poetry in chaste Hindi was something that gradually died after I discontinued formal instruction in the subject. These past few days, thanks to Abdaal and Urdu, I'm rediscovering poetry and have fallen in love with Ghalib's "Hazaron Khwaishen Aisi" and Majaaz's "Awaara".It's always been my belief that Hindustani poetry manages to convey emotion, particularly sadness, in a much more intense manner than English. English poetry, particularly that of Milton,is impressive but lacks the depth of Hindustani. An example of which is Taraana-i-Hind by Allama Iqbal(What we term 'Saare Jahan Se Acha').
Enough.The law of Contracts harks silently from a corner. To quote Carl Emmanuel Bach,"I'll be Bach".(And I shall forever be glad for batchmates who've heard of the Goldberg Variations; and I succesfully managed to lose my Glenn Gould CD).